Child Growth, Health and Wellbeing

Overview

This unit explores psycho-social perspectives of child development to inform early childhood education and care for child growth, health and wellbeing. Students will evaluate these perspectives and explore their implications for children from birth to five years of age. This unit positions students as informed practitioners who apply key child development knowledge and skills to curriculum design and pedagogical practices. Authentic cases and problems from diverse cultures provide students with
opportunities to link child development theories and best practices to educational and care systems. Students complete 10 days of placement with 3-5 year olds.

Unit learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

1. Articulate knowledge and understanding of multiple theoretical and sector perspectives that underpin child growth, health and wellbeing
2. Apply insights into different theories and their application to child growth, health and wellbeing in diverse cultural contexts
3. Link theoretical knowledge and skills on child development to curriculum design and pedagogical practices
4. Apply theoretical knowledge and skills to support the developmental and learning needs of diverse children

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Assessment

Students must achieve a minimum overall score of 70% for the Professional Experience Placement Report, including meeting the Early Childhood National Quality Standards (NQS) Elements 2.2.2 (Incident and Emergency Management), 2.2.3 (Child Protection), 4.2.2 (Professional Standards and 7.1.3 (Roles and Responsibilities).

This report is assessed on a four-point scale:

• Not met (0%-49%)
• At risk (50%-69%)
• Met (70%-89%)
• Exceeding (90%-100%).
   

Students who achieve an ‘At Risk’ result will be offered one opportunity to improve their assessment through an appropriate supplementary task determined by the Unit Convenor.

This hurdle requirement is in line with Initial Teacher Education Accreditation and meets the National Program Standard 5.4 (Professional Experience-Providers work with their placement school(s)/systems to achieve a rigorous approach to the assessment of pre-service teachers’ achievements against the Graduate Teacher Standards) set by the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership that partner with State Teacher Education registration organisations to register all qualified Early Childhood Teachers.

Content

• Theories and research on growing and thinking child at infancy and early childhood  

• Theories and research talking and social child at infancy and early childhood 

• The Early Years Learning Framework and other policy implications on child development 

• Child development and learning environments  

• Child development and curriculum design for learning and wellbeing 

• Child development and teaching pedagogy for learning and wellbeing 

• Role of a professional teacher in supporting and educating young children  

• Resources for child development for birth – 5 years.